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University of North Carolina Magazine 


February, 1903 


CRITIQUE OF ‘‘WESTWARD HO.”’ 


‘ SETTING. 


AD Kingsley sought far and wide for momentous 
crises around which to throw thethe dress of heroic 


Story, he could not have found two of more significance 
than those which furnish him the setting of his greatest 
novels, ‘‘Hypatia” and ‘(Westward Ho.” In the former 
he makes use of the fierce death grapple between Greek 
philosophy and Christianity, out of which Christianity 
came forth gloriously triumphant; in the latter, of the 
defeat of the Spanish Armada, a defeat which was at once 
the death blow to Catholic Spain, and the pledge of life 
and hope to England and her colonies then being planted 
beyond the seas. The period treated of in ‘sWestward 
Ho” is worthy to be sung \& in epic measure It wasa 
period characterized by herotc deeds. Huogland, during 

the severities and eighties of the sixteenth century, was 

' experiencing for the first time the thrill of her new, 
tapidly expanding life. Her commerce, formerly over- 
shadowed by that of Holland and of Spain, was begiu- 
ning to look to the seas. Her national pride, long 
dormant, was fast awakening to assume its right position. 
She was ruled by a queen, keenly alive te the possibili- 
ties of the times, to whom all subjects were loyal. She 
was unitéd in spirit; terres prepared for conquest. 
Of her Shakespeare could boast, with an exultant thrilf” 
of triumph, in ‘‘King John:’* 


‘This England never did, nor never shall, 
Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror, 
But when it first did help to wound itself.” 
*Act 5, Sc. 7. 


- 


260 THe UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE 


And Campbell, looking back at her froma later century 
in which her true pens th could be measured in exact 
terms, could sing:* 


“Britannia needs no Baier: 

No towers along the steep, 

Her march is o’er the mountain wave, 

Her home is on the deep.” 
She was entering, with her Raleighs, her Drakes, her 
Grenvils, upon her great world conquest, and no power 
could stay her. For an opponent in this terrible con- 
flict, she had none other than Spain, continuously vic- 
torious for a hundred years and rich beyond measure 
with the gold of Incas and Moutezumas. These are the 
two powers which, for several decades, have been crouch- 
ing for a final spring. Atlastit ismade, And Spain, 
haughty, Me cruel, and tyrannous so long, goes down 
—irretrievably down—in "defeat. The scenes of this 
tragedy, out of which a more abundantlife was to spring, 
are laid, to be specific, in Devon, in Ireland, off the coast 
of England, in the Spanish main, and in New Spain. 
The final battle-field is the great Atlantic, stretching 
from the dangerous Orkneys to the rippling bay of Santa 
Martha. This isthe time, these are the events, of which 
Kingsley treats. 

PLOT. 
%—- Compared with ‘‘The Last of the Barons” in seberesee 

te breadth of plot, ‘‘Westward Ho” is decidedly Tie less 
comprehensive. evidently" was not Kiugsley’s pur- 
pose to weave a beautiful cloth of gold in which the 
forms of many things were to appear, but rather a 
strong, much-enduring cable, composed of a few tested 


*Ye Mariners of England. 
HY gt towed | tiie) ed ener Pan ee: 
OE ila Thre alee ape 
[dercr9 ee breadth mK cme 


CRITIQUE OF ‘‘WESTWARD HO’’ 261 


strands. The plot is limited in scope. The fortunes of 
Amyas Leigh, the hero, form the central theme of the 
story. While it is true that the activities of England 
and Spain and the principles for which those countries 
stood respectively are accurately set forth, still it is with 
the adventures of Captain Leigh that Kingsley occupies 
himself. Thus the plot is unified. Furthermore, the 
plot is consistent. There are but two circumstances, 
the truthfulness of which can at all be called in question. 
Amyas and Frank Leigh found it possible to meet Rose 
Saltern tooeasilyat LaGuayra. Yeo wassomewhat slow 
in discoveriny his long-lost little maid. But those were 
days of stirring adventure in which brave knightsdared 
much for fair ladies and in which stalwart Devonshire 
sailors were not asgifted in detective faculties as is their 
countryman, Sherlock Holmes, & today. In one respect 
the convergence of the plot and the suspense of interest 
may seem to be partially broken. ‘To the reader of the 
modern novel, stories of vengeance are not so entertain- 
ing as stories of love. Asa result, when such a reader 
finds Rose Saltern, the apple of discord among the mem- 
bers of the gallant brotherhood, hopelessly lost to them- 
selves and but partially reclaimed to Frank Leigh, he 
feels that he has read pages enough. Frank’s wish has 
been partly realized. His persecutors have received their 
just reward. Why prolong the story further? To see 
Amyas kill Spaniards indiscriminately, aud finally, 
after he is struck with blindness, tamely surrender his 
noble heart to a new and alien love, why, that is wholly 
unromantic. The dénouement is positively stupid. But, 
in reality, such a reader is altogether mistaken. He fails 
to note the onward, climactic movement. He fails to 


262 THe UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE 


keep up with Amyas. The hero’s strides are too long 
and swiftfor him. He fails utterly to detect the unifying 
thread, but of its existence there can be no doubt and it is 
given here. An intense longing for the life of the sea 
wrings the strong, already manly heart of Amyas as he 
stands, amere youth in years, upon the heights of Lundy, 
eagery gazing at the gliding sail as they fade, ghost- 
like and sink into that magic sea which washes eternally 
the shores of the distant west. Love for the ‘‘Rose 
of Torridge,” and a misunderstanding with Master Brim- 
blecombe, send him through the Strait of Magellan on his 
apprenticeship of toil and_obedience, Then vengeance 
drives him to the omnious overhanging cliffs of La 
Guayra, and triple vengeance lashes him onward, regard- 
less of tide and storm, to the thundering, spray-clad 
shutters off Lundy. And then a power, greater than any 
of these, lays its iron grasp upon him, a power, terrible, 
yet purifying. Itis the beneficient power of suffering, by 
which, through gloom and brokeness of spirit, he is led 
to the portal of generous, forgiving love! 


CHARACTERS. 


Kingsley’s characters in ‘‘Westward Ho” are power- 
fully drawn, ‘They live. They move. ‘They act accor- 
ding to their opportunities and leave results to care for 
themselves. It is not necessary to make a detailed, in- 
trospective analysis of them. A night’s vigil with Mrs. 
Leigh, as she prays for her sons at sea and meekly re- 
signs herself and them to the Infinite; a hazardous 
wandering through trackless forests and danger-be-set 
mountain passes with Amyas; an hour with Yeo at the 
guns; a glance at Don Guzman, as, at the bottom of the 


CRITIQUE OF ‘‘WESTWARD HO’’ 263 


sea, with the “‘prawnes and crayfish” swimming around 
his head, he draws the picture of his ‘‘fair and true lady” 
from his bosom and bids his officers drink to her;— 
these chatice views suffice to show the nobility of Kings- 
ley’s characters. How boundless it is! and how clearly 
it is thrown into relief by its total absence in Eustace 
Leigh and his associates! ‘These characters are natural, 
too. Against Frank Leigh aloue can the charge of af- 
fectation be laid, and that without real justification. 
He is a courtier, and necessarily, a Euphuist. But be- 
neath his courtly exterior he has a heart. He is more 
than a courtier. He is aman. 


PURPOSE. 


Kingsley had a definite purpose in view when writing 
‘““Westward Ho.” A bitter anti-Romanist, he wished to 
oppose a inovement of his day, directed by Newman, to 
lead the Anglican church into the ranks of Catholicism. 
In order to carry out his purpose most effectively he 
placed before the public, by means of his novel, a sig- 
nificant object lesson. He exhibited, with rare skill, 
two characters, one of which he represented as being the 
natural product of Protestantism, the other, of Roman- 
ism—Amyas and HKustace Leigh. Born of the same 
stock, yet trained under widely different influences, he 
represents them as growing up to stand for entirely op- 
posite principles. Amyas is dull at his books, he likes 
the open air, he is big hearted, he honors womanhood, 
he learns to obey, he rules himself, he speaks the truth, 
he hates, forgives, loves. He is at every point a man. 
He is Kingsley’s ‘‘muscular Christian.” On the other 
hand, Eustace, well equipped mentally and physically, 


264 ; THe UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE 


falls into the care of Jesuits and becomes one him- 
self. Without any appreciation of the truly noble, a 
veritable tool in the hands of those to whom he sells him- 
self, a traitor to his country and to his blood, he is dis- 
missed with contempt by the author as unworthy of 
continued mention in the pages of a book in which 
nothing save manliness is countenanced. Amyas is the 
product of Protestantism, Kustace, of Romanism. Kings- 
ley holds the two up before a considerate public and 
asks the burning question: Which will you choose? 
Thus it is seen why Kingsley chose the closing years of 
the sixteenth century for the setting of his story. It 
was the period of a world crisis. Nations still to be born 
were to rejoice or to be sad at the outcome of the strug- 
gle then on. What that outcome would be depended 
largely upon the character of the men who engaged in 
the conflict; and their character would inevitably be 
what their training should make it. What was true of 
Hlizabethan England, Kingsley claimed, would be true 
of Victorian England. ‘That was the startling, burning 
truth which he flung blazing before the eyes of his 
countrymen. ‘That is the truth which ‘‘Westward Ho” 
was to proclaim. 


STYLE. 


Kingsley’s fortunate choice of subject, his success in 
character portrayal, and the momentous import of the 
lesson which his story teaches, do not account wholly 
for the strong hold which ‘‘Westward Ho” has had upon 
men. Much of its power must be attributed to the hap- 
py style in which it is written. In ‘‘Hypatia,” and in 
his other novels, Kingsley seems, at times, unnatural. 


CRITIQUE OF ‘‘WESTWARD HO’”’ 265 


He loses himself in his attempt to give expression to 
what he supposes is philosophical reasoning. He does 
not know, absolutely, every phase of his subject. But 
in ‘‘Westward Ho,” the case is entirely different. He 
knows himself, as well as his subject. His freshness, 
his buoyancy, his vigor, effect his style. They make 
it vital and winning. If analyzed, it will be found to 
be characterized by naturalness, clearness, vividness. 

In just what way Kingsley secures the easy onward 
movement to be noted in almost all of his sentences, it 
is difficult to discover. But that his sentences do move 
naturally, freely, isa fact. In reading ‘‘Westward Ho” 
one never finds himself pent up between two semi-colons, 
unable to see or move in either direction. One can 
always glance backward and take his bearing and then 
move forward inline with the sentence. Numerous 
short sentences and page after page of natural, spirited 
conversation, most probably account for this charac- 
teristic. Bideford ‘‘salts” talk and jest in their own 
flowing vernacilar. Furthermore, they act, and the in- 
tensity of their action is reflected in the movement of 
the sentences in which it is described. They talk while 
they prime their guns and draw their swords, and what 
they say under such circumstances cannot be stilted. 

Naturalness is a step toward clearness. Accuracy and 
minuteness of detail and figurative illustration are also 
essential to perspicuous style. Kingsley is sympatheti- 
cally accurate. He knows what he describes and feels a 
keen interest init. He is scientifically minute, but not 
coldly,so, nor can it be said that he is lacking in that 
peculiar kind of imagination, which, thrown around 
scenes and events, makes them warm with life. One 


266 THe UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE 


quotation suffices to show his use of accurate, minute de- 
tail and pointed illustration: 

*<Frer [Mrs. Leigh’s] hair was now grown gray; her 
cheeks were wan; her step was feeble. Sheseldom went 
forth from her home, save to the church, and to the 
neighboring cottages. She never mentioned her sons’ 
names; never allowed a word to pass her lips, which might 
betoken that she thought of them; but every day when 
the tide was high, and the red flag on the sand-hills 
showed that there was water over the bar, she paced the 
terrace walk, and devoured with greedy eyes the sea 
beyond, in search of the sail which never came. The 
stately ships went in and out as of yore; and white sails 
hung off the bar for many an hour, day after day, month 
after month, year after year; but an instinct within told © 
her that none of them were the sails she sought. She 
knew that ship, every line of her, the cut of every cloth; 
she could have picked it out miles away, among a whole 
fleet, but it never came, and Mrs. Leigh bowed her head 
and worshipped, and went to and fro amongst the poor, 
who looked on her as an awful being, and one whom God 
had brought very near unto Himself, into that mysterious 
haven of sorrow which they too knew full well. And 
alone women and bed-ridden men looked in her stead- 
fast eyes, and loved them, and drank in strength from 
them; for they knew she had gone down in the fiercest 
depths of the fiery furnace, and was walking there un- 
hurt by the side of One whose form was as of the Son of 
God.” 

Kingsley is also intensely vivid. Long after ‘‘West- 
word Ho” has been read scenes sketched within it remain 

*W. H., Ch. 28. 


CRITIQUE OF ‘““WESTWARD Ho’? 267 


fixed, rooted, in the reader’s mind. They are more than 
mere scenes. They are veritable pictures which live 
either in nervous quivering outline, or in intense vivid- 
ness of color. With a few strokes of the pen he dashes 
off pictures which live for the same reason that pictures 
in the ‘Vision of Sudden Death,” in ‘The Spanish 
Nun,” and in the ‘‘Ancient Mariner” live. Quotations 
from ‘‘Westward Ho” will illustrate what is meant by 
nervous quivering outline and intense vividness of color. 

* “And in fact, they [Raleigh and Amyas] could now 
hear plainly the ‘Ochone, Ochonorie,’ of some wild 
woman; and scrambling over the boulders of the knoll, 
in another moment came full upon her. 

‘She was a young girl, sluttish and unkempt, of 
_ course, but fair enough; her only covering, as usual, was 
the ample yellow mantle. There she sat upon a stone, 
tearing her black dishevelled hair, and every now and 
then throwing up her head, and bursting into a long, 
monrurahcry, * * * 

‘‘On her knees lay the head of a man of middle age, in 
the long soutane of a Romish priest. One look at the 
attitude of his limbs told that he was dead. 

‘The two paused in awe; and Raleigh’s spirit, suscep- 
tible of all poetical images, felt keenly that strange 
scene, the bleak and bitter sky, the shapeless bog, the 
stunted trees, the savage girl alone with the corpse in 
iuat itter desolation. .*~ ..* \* 

“It was the body of a large and coarse-featured man: 
but wasted and shrunk as if by famine to a very skele- 
ton. The hands and legs were cramped up, and the 


*W. H., Ch. 11. 


268 ; THe UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE 


trunk bowed together, as if the man had died of cold or 
hunger.” 

* «The bay of Santa Martha is rippling before the 
land breeze, one sheet of living flame. The mighty 
forests are sparkling with myriad fire-flies. The lazy 
mist which lounges round the inner hills shines golden 
in the sunset rays; and, nineteen thousand feet aloft, the 
mighty peak of Horqueta cleaves the abyss of air, rose- 
red against the dark-blue vault of heaven. The rosy 
cone fades to a dark dull hue; but only for awhile. The 
stars flash out one by one, and Venus, like another 
moon, tinges the eastern snows with gold, and sheds 
across the bay a long yellow line of rippling light. 
Everywhere is glory and richness. What wonder if the 
earth in that enchanted land be as rich to her inmost 
depths as she is upon the surface? The heaven, the 
hills, the sea, are one sparkling garland of jewels—what 
wonder if the soil be jeweled also? if every water-course 
and bank of earth be spangled with emeralds and rubies, 
with grains of gold and feathered wreaths of native 
silver?” 

An analysis of Kingsley’s style should reveal, in addi- 
tion to these characteristics, another which is to be 
noted in ‘‘Westward Ho,” but not elsewhere in the 
author’s writings, and of which, so far as it can be ascer- 
tained, no critical mention has heretofore been made. 
As has already been pointed out, this story is decidedly 
English. It portrays, with singular accuracy, the Eng- 
land of Elizabeth. It pictures not only the queen and 
her hardy sailors in their opposition to Spain, but also, 
Elizabeth and her court in their minute observance of a 

*'W. H., Ch. 26. 


CRITIQUE OF ‘‘WESTWARD H0O’’ 269 


thousand and one formalities. It reflects, not in an 
exaggerated, inartistic way, the Huphuistic influences of 
the time. ‘True to his seamen, Kingsley is equally true 
to his courtiers, especially so in his representation of 
their actions in matters pertaining to honor and love. 
Having a deep reverence for their genuine worth, in spite 
of their seeming absurdities, he sketched them upon his 
.canvas as Raleighs and Sidneys should have been 
sketched—sturdy and brave in the practical realities of 
life, polished and formal to the point of affectation in 
' the refinements of the court. ‘Their praise of the queen 
and of her attendants was superlative and studied; their 
trivial sententiousness was refined almost beyond the 
limit of endurance; their classical references were num- 
erous; their figures were far-fetched and frequently 
drawn from a fabulous natural history; and their sen- 
tences, tricked out in every rhetorical device, were ornate 
to the last degree. In these respects, however, they 
were genuine Kuphuists, true disciples of Lyly, and are 
worthy of the defence which Kingsley makes in their 
behalf in contradistinction to the less noble and more 
pedantic followers of Gabriel Harvey whom Scott, mis- 
taking for genuine Euphuists, rather poorly typi- 
fies in his well-known character, Sir Percie Shafton. In 
‘Westward Ho” Frank Leigh represents, better than 
any other of Kingsley’s characters, the peculiarities of 
the courtier. It is in his expressions that traces of 
-Euphuism are to be noted. Quotations from his speeches 
made at the celebration of Amyas Leigh’s first return 
and at the formation of the Brotherhood of the Rose will 
illustrate this peculiarity of style excellently. With 


fae 
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fj s a 
i ‘ ? 


270 Tur UNIVERSITY MAGAZINE 


these words, directed to the Lady of Bath, he makes his 
first bow to the public: 

*“Since the whole choit of Muses, madam, have 
migrated to the Court of Whitehall, no wonder if some 
dews of Parnassus should fertilize at times even our 
Devon moors.” ie 

And later, he becomes better known to his readers 
through these ornate sentences which fall upon the 
astonished ears of the meitibers of the Brotherhood: 

+‘How, then, shall lovers make him [Cupid] the 
father of strife? Shall Psyche wed with Cupid to bring 
forth a cockatrice’s egg? or the soul be filled with love, 
the likeness of the immortals, to burn with envy and 
jealousy, division and distrust? True, the rose has its 
thorn; but it leaves poison and stings to the nettle. 
Cupid has his arrow, but he hurls no scorpions. Venus 
is awful when despised, as the daughters of Proteus 
found, but her handmaids are the Graces, not the Furies. 
Surely he who loves aright will not only find love lovely, 
but become himself lovely also.” | 

‘Westward Ho,” as judged by the most important 
critical standards, is the greatest of Kingsley’s creations. 
Having its very being in one of the most supreme ¢rises 
known to men, it is necessarily a story far removed \from 
the commonplace. It is living, vital. Loveliness and 
nobility of character are stamped upon its every page. 
Men can learn from it the important lessons of life—the 
value of energy and character. To them it offers hope 
and cheer. It isa noblecreation. Itis worthy of being 
read. 


L. R. WiLson. 
* W.H., Oh. 2. 


7+ W. H., Ch. 8. 


Pee 


